Hacker News Reader

Comment by ohashi | Hacker News Reader

That's an interesting question and I don't really have an answer, but just a few thoughts.

If we assume the problem is social (a behavior learned by participating in the society) then the next question is whether it's directly related to something specifically learned/taught or whether it's a result of a lot of different things that are taught.

My suspicion is that it's social and the result of a combination of many things. To try and reverse engineer society's beliefs to change that specific behavior is probably unlikely and perhaps we would be losing out on some positive behaviors in the process.

To specifically fix that issue, one would probably have to campaign and educate if you wanted a more 'free' solution. A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders.

I don't really know what the solution is, but I do know that I don't see an easy fix.

View on HN

It's not an easy fix, but there's been a lot of scholarly work that points to some of the "societal beliefs" you talk about reverse engineering (grad school protip: that reverse engineering is called "deconstructionism" and there's an entire discipline called "gender and women studies" that delves into it ;)). I haven't scanned all the comments yet but I suspect a good number of them call for things like "education" or "coaching" on negotiation -- basically, that "women should ask for more". The thing these solutions overlook is that the root of the problem is socialized, enforced gender roles and there are serious social consequences for women who overstep these boundaries.

An interesting recent study study studied the behavior of women when negotiating for themselves vs negotiating for others. When negotiating for themselves, they exhibited the kinds of behavior in the original link, ending up with salaries far below the men in the study. When they were asked to negotiate for someone else, however, they performed on par with the men. (link: http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/news/item/7223326/Role+of+Gende..., original: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/98/2/256/) And you know that oft-cited study that men think about sex way more than women? Well, they also think about sleep and food at about the same rate.. and way more than women. One way to interpret these results is that women are socialized to think less of their own needs (and to voice them less) -- and this is a societal norm that's heavily enforced with consequences for those who don't toe the line.

Think about how strong women are regarded vs men who exhibit the same behavior. A woman that does what she needs to get what she deserves runs the risk of being called a "bitch" or, at the very least, being thought of as unfeminine. Personally, I find fucking with gender norms an amusing hobby so I don't give a shit about the consequences.. but a lot of women aren't into that ;) Just remember this when thinking about possible solutions -- the root causes are way deeper than the appallingly patronizing "women need to be taught how to negotiate."

"Think about how strong women are regarded vs men who exhibit the same behavior. A woman that does what she needs to get what she deserves runs the risk of being called a "bitch" or, at the very least, being thought of as unfeminine. "

I think that most men who exhibit the same behavior that would get a woman the title of "bitch" fall under the umbrella of "sociopathic asshole". It just so happens that there's a lot more of those, especially in upper management, so it almost becomes the norm, and thus people don't complain about the status quo.

You're way off. A guy walks up to a woman and says something to her. She says "I'd rather not talk to you right now" in a direct, unapologetic way. A small but real minority of men would instantly label her a bitch.

No one would call a man who said that a "sociopathic asshole".

>A small but real minority of men would instantly label her a bitch.

Well, yeah - they put themselves out there and got swatted aside without a second thought. That's called a defense mechanism. Actually calling her a bitch is something else, though.

>No one would call a man who said that a "sociopathic asshole".

Sociopathic, no, but I'd certainly call him an asshole.

Yes, as a male it's easy for me to get sucked into the patriarchal conclusion: it's the fault of clueless females. And rather than taking this moment to question whether our remuneration system is comically aggressive and deceitful, it's better to finally teach the females a couple weapons of the menfolk.

(After all, we males have never been known to retaliate against females asserting themselves in meaningful ways, particularly not when some aggressive guy's haggling them down. Patriarchy is actually caused by whatever's going on in women's heads, turns out. Men are neutral. Especially the kindly guys in the hypermale programming profession.)

absolutely agree. It's incredibly disingenuous of the author to lay all the blame at the feet of his female job applicants.

The problem is his companies aggressive hiring practices and his willingness to follow them, not his applicants.

I think you lost yourself in your attempt at extreme sarcasm.

Sorry to disappoint. ;) The remuneration system is well-known for its antagonism. While (if you're fortunate) some individual negotiations may not seem aggressive on their face, if you step back and consider the forest, there's intense pressure to bargain down costs.

Like take "labor" costs (most of us here get called "labor", even if we're a privileged class of it). Lots happens behind the scenes to beat down things like collective bargaining, because they increase labor's bargaining power.

A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders.

I like the idea of equal pay for equal work, but define "equal work"? In a factory job with quotas and quality control, this is probably pretty obvious, but once you step outside that realm it gets very touchy.

You could easily have two salespeople (and area where results are easy to measure) but where one works more hours and the other still sells substantially more. Are we measuring hours or results? And in sales we at least have a good measure for productivity, in programming it is often hard to measure.

For that matter, how do we define equal pay? I know people that turned down higher paying jobs because they liked some of the less obvious fringe benefits at their current job, such as having long periods on the clock where they could do their homework as long as they were there and ready when called on to work hard and fast. Is the ability to do homework on the clock a form of pay we should be counting? What about having a job where you go on business trips, but you get to go sight seeing in the evenings? Is the sight seeing pay? Someone might pass up more pay to get it. Or the fulfillment from doing a meaningful job instead of chasing money at any cost, or flexible hours.

As I said, no easy fix :) These are deep and complex issues, the fact they are worth discussing almost always indicates as much.

A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders.

Of course, this assumes that the paternalists administering such a solution will actually get it right. If you listen to the proponents of such a solution, it becomes readily apparent that they won't:

"...social workers (a female-dominated field) are paid less than probation officers (a male-dominated field) even though both jobs require similar levels of skill, effort, and responsibility." http://harkin.senate.gov/press/column.cfm?i=222096

And this example has an obvious reason why pay isn't equal. Can one really expect the paternalists to understand the difference between a great and a merely good developer? Or front end vs backend, app vs systems?

Just to be sure, what is the obvious reason here?

Working all day with convicted criminals is both unpleasant and dangerous. Type "probation officer attacked" into google news.

I get, "No results found for "probation officer attacked"."

Of the first page (after removing quotes) it only appears that there's one story about someone actually attacking a probation officer. But there is this nugget: Probation officer stabbed neighbour with garden fork at bonfire

Note, if you search for "social worker attacked" (with quotes removed) you get two stories on the first page about social workers being attacked.

So clearly being a social worker is twice as dangerous as being a probation officer. And they're far less likely to attack people with forks.

I don't know why you get no results, I get three: http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=658991t http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2011/nov/25/woman-accused-of-... http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-11-02/news/30352502_1_p...

My guess is localization is tweaking your results.

Anyway, here is data. Law enforcement (which includes parole officers) and bartending have the highest rates of workplace violence, social workers aren't on the list.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/wv09.pdf

Do you really find the results surprising?

Your point hinges on POs being lumped in with all LEOs?

Thanks.

More people aspire to be social workers than probation officers.

"A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders."

Even if we overcame the massive impracticalities in determining what we mean by "equal work" and "equal pay" for various persons in various jobs, such a policy would essentially punish success. Those with the ability and wherewithal to negotiate would effectively lose their negotiating leverage in the face of mandated wage ranges. Over time, this would hamper, if not kill, personal incentive to try harder and stand out from the pack.

Education, not mandate, is the way to go here. Rather than forcing salary bands on the general public, let's teach kids how to negotiate. Much of the current disparity between male and female negotiating prowess is likely cultural in origin. The best way to overcome that cultural difference is to teach women the skill -- not to punish the men who are successful at it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com